under the microscope

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Wednesday (just barely) 31 January, 2007

I can't believe I'm up this early! I have my alarm set for 0400, and rarely (maybe twice year) does it ring. Usually I'm awake at 0330, and get up by 0345. This morning the alarm went off scaring the wits outta me. I shut it off, got up and while checking my e-mail and blog noticed that in fact it was 0219. Crap! How could that have happened? Easy, didn't check the alarm setting before going to bed. Duh! Good job rel.

On the other hand: Serendipity strikes again. I'll get my post done this morning instead of waiting until this evening. Now for the longest time, I've posted in the morning, but yesterday was the official start of my training for the Ottawa Marathon.Anyone want to join me? May 25, 26, 27 2007

My mornings will be dedicated to training. Blogging to PM. Today however, since I up, I'll do it now.

Best-selling author Sidney Sheldon dead at 89.

I checked the news from CNN on my desk top, and found out that Author Sydney Sheldon diedI think I've read most of his novels. He had the ability to create those page turners that I just couldn't put down. He was a very talented man, succeeding as a playwright, producer of movies and popular TV series. He didn't start writing novels until age 50.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Saturday, 27 January, 2007

Janus

Saturnus

It is still Saturday, really almost to late to post for today. I have been struggling with tomorrow's Sunday Scribblings post prompt, chronicles. I read a dozen or so of the early-bird submissions, some of which were quite creative, but as yet nothing worth while has come to the fore of my mind. Thinking, that maybe, if I just start writing, that stimulus alone might crack open the vault of creativity in the recesses of my cluttered mind and bring forth some ideas to which I could expound upon. And so, here I be.......................................................

I'm on call this weekend and like so many other days this month have an under lying feeling that a cold is trying to burst full-blown upon my head, nose and chest. I prefer to work when I'm on call just to avoid the anticipation of the dreaded phone call. After all these years of being on-call the ringing phone still causes the startle reflex to exhibit itself fully.

I slept well and slept-in this morning. meaning I got over 8 hours of sleep. Went to the hospital for a surgical case for nine AM. After this I attended to two epidurals in patients in the ICU. I returned home about twelve thirty. I was fatigued beyond reason and lay down and slept easily for 3 hours. The nagging feeling of a head cold making it self known by voice changes, too frequent nose clearing episodes and just a general feeling of malaise.

***

I was dragged over to the new blogger on Thursday last by Google. The transition was quick and seamless but I'm puzzled as to why some of my commenters, named on previous comments, were changed to Anonymous.

Back to the pad and pencil to record some chronicle..................................................................

Thursday, January 25, 2007

I think it quite appropriate that the anniversary of the famous Scottish Bard's Birthday falls on Poetry Thursday this year.

The Prompt for this week was to tell in 153 words or less, why I love poetry.

Why I love poetry...in 153 words or lessby [rel]

When I was a young lad, a friend of my parents once said to me, rel you're just like your father…you’re a dreamer.Silently, I took offense…not at being like my father, but that he would call me a dreamer.Now some 50 years later, I realize (actually I realized it long ago) that he was right.I don’t take offense at it anymore, nor do I know for sure if he meant anything derogatory by it at the time he said it.He may have just been stating his observations.

I’m a deeply emotional person; I feel sadness, joy, hate, lust, love, anger, calm, fear, etc. seemingly, at the far ends of the emotion spectrum.Poetry gives me an outlet to express these feelings with all the vividness they require.Poetry is emotional writing.

Reading poetry is refreshing, rewarding and instructive.How other authors reveal themselves, which words they use to clearly explain their thoughts is what draws me to poetry.The cleanness of expression is exquisite, and I hunger for the ability to do the same.

In honor of Robbie Burns’ birthday I’m posting a poem he wrote which I hope reflects what I mean when I say poetry is emotional writing.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Wednesday 24 January, 2007

30° F. Windy, snowing.

Gym day/strength training.

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.George Santayana

#####A couple of posts ago, I mentioned going to the post office and said that in a previous life it had been a general store run by my grand father. I also mentioned that he sold it to an older brother, who along with his wife had operated it as a dish wares store. The photo below shows a child"s play dish set made of genuine porcelain which came from that store.

In the fall of 1975 we moved into the house we currently live in. Neither my wife nor I were from this village, but my father had been born here and lived here until he was 16 years old. If you follow small town logic, even though he never lived here after he moved away, he was still considered a native son. Because my father was a native son, I was treated, immediately upon arrival, as though I too had been a native.

Not long after we moved in, dad came for a visit. He lived 10 miles away in the city where I was born and raised. He came often to visit and to impart to me some history and lore from his growing up years. On this particular evening we were sitting on the stoop enjoying the setting sun, swatting mosquitoes, feeling oppressed by the stifling humidity, and just generally absorbing the ambiance of the neighborhood. While we were chatting, a middle aged woman happened by and stopped to chat. She introduced herself and told us that she and her husband had recently moved into the house just across and down the street and behind the church from our place. I told her who I was and that we had just moved in , which she new already, and introduced my dad to her. She asked if dad in fact was the REL she remembered from her youth growing up here in the village. She was a few years younger than dad but remembered his family. She too had grown up, married and moved away . Her husband, being a reporter for the NY Times, caused them to move far and wide frequently during his career. Now retired, they had moved back to her childhood home, where her 80+ year old mother still lived.

A few weeks later this woman appeared at our door with the above pictured china pieces. She said that when she was growing up she and her family live in the house directly across from, as it turned out, my great uncle's store. This would be the uncle who'd bought the store from my grandfather and turned it into a china shop. Never having any children of thier own, my uncle and his wife thought of the village children as there kids. My neighbor told of how one Christmas when she was 10 or 11 years old, the lady of the shop gave to her a child's china dish set. These pieces were all that was left and she wanted us to have them since they had originally come from my uncle's store.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Sunday, 21 January, 2007

Prompt #43 Fantasy/Phantasy

Why do you love/not love fantasy? Or, what does fantasy mean to you?

My thoughts about fantasy are spelled out perfectly in Laini's post today. Never at a loss for words myself, I will expound futher on why I love fantasy, and what I think it is.I think fantasy is make-believe, and I love make believe. It's story-telling, escapism, imagination stretching , wishful thinking,and for me, soul soothing.

I don't make much of a differentiation between such terms as fanasy, sci-fi, and "normal" fiction. Each weaves it's own magic in my mind, capturing my interest and transporting me to a world of mystery and intrigue, a world I'm happy to inhabit for a short time.

PhantasmagoricDeceptive apparitionEscapism, magic

When I was 9 years old, or there abouts, I introduced myself to Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan of the Apes". From that point on I was and continue to be an avid reader of fantasy books, and magazines.

Besides the Tarzan stories, I also devoured the stories about Bomba, the jungle boy.Written by ghostwriters (most stories are attributed to Howard Garis)

It wasn't long before I discovered Merlin the magician and reveled in the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the round table. In fact those stories still captivate me to this day. ie: Mary Stewart's " The Crystal Cave"

Naturally, it came to pass that I met another hero model in Robinhood of Sherwood Forest and his band of merrie men, who stole from the rich to give to the poor. Golly, how many make-believe scenerios my friends and I played out in the local woods nearby. (I wasn't always Robin, sometimes I was Alan A Dale the minstrel with Robin's band of merrie men.)

Alan led me to Ivanhoe and more medieval tales of daring-do, of under dogs saving the day and winning the hand of the fair maiden from the evil doers.

I refuse to believe that there isn't a little fantasy in everyone's life. Maybe, just maybe, I indulge more than most, but no, I doubt it. I believe in Santa Claus, the "Polar Express", the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairie.

Fantasy is a restorer of hope. It reinforces my belief that we can overcome the evil warmongers, the money-grubbers and charletons who rule the earth, or think they do.

As a certified practioner of hypnosis for 25 year, give or take, I verbally described fantasy with imagery for my clients, to enable them to find relaxation and surcease from stress, to curtail habits that had become addictive and bothersome. In other words, I helped them use their imagination to make their real world a better place to live. The books and movies I've enjoyed have helped me create fantastic worlds where anything is possible.

Without some fantasies this world of ours would be too mundane or fearful to tolerate for long. We must escape, from time to time, in order to replenish our faith, our hope, our belief in a better future for us, our children, on Ad infinitum.

Why even now as a 29 year old man in a 61 year old body I have fantasies: I have fantasies of becoming a successful writer, and poet. I imagine myself living to be 100 years old with the physical and mental capabilities of a 40 year old. I think that the magic answer will appear to me in a dream as how to make Huxley's "Brave New World" a reality. I still have sexual fantasies, and ....well never mind about that.

Perhaps you don't believe in phantasy, but for me it would be a dull life indeed without it!

For more Phantasmagoric fantasy... fly over__ ,through this fantastical internet blogsphere impossibility, to Sunday Scribblings and escape for a moment or two!

Saturday, January 20, 2007

I walked to the Postoffice to pick-up the mail. Looking out the window, the day looked bright and so, I thought it would be a mild walk. Wrong! The wind coming off the river was frigid and in my face.

Still and all, I do enjoy walking the three blocks to th P.O. In my village of 450 people we don't have mail delivery. You can get rural delivery via a neighboring "city" if you install a roadside mailbox. A few residents do so, but the majority of us rent a mailbox at the post office. It can be inconvenient when working away from the village (which most of us do) and can't get back to the village before 1645.

Besides being the mail repository, our P.O. is much like the general store of old, sans the woodstove and checker board. It's a gathering place for disemination of local gossip, and problem-solving the grander predicaments of the day. Of course one must have a finger on the pulse of the community to ensure that you're there at the appropriate time. If you go at other times you have to rely on the postal clerk to dish the dirt and some times they're too busy filling the boxes to take time to kibbitz with you.

Mon. thru Fri. you should arrive between 1200 & 1215 or 1600 1nd 1630. On Sat. stop in between 1000 and 1100. Sunday? Drop into the coffee shop..... if open.

Today There wasn't any inclination to chat. Everyone was tuned to business...get the mail and get going. Saturday is usually a meager mail day for me, but since I was too late to pick it up yesterday, I did have a pasal of mail today, though predominantly junk. However my recent order from Amazon was in and made the trip wholely worthwhile.

A tip of genealogical interest...to me at least. The building which houses our post office was, in an earlier time, a store. In fact it was a grocery or as known then, a general store. The proprietor of which was my father's father. The family lived in the upstairs apartments. This would have been1915-1923. My grandmother died there when my dad was three. Shortly thereafter, my grandfather sold the store to an older brother, who, together with his wife ran it as a crockery and fine china store. The man behind the counter is my grandfather. The lad in the rear is not identified. Circa 1915-1923

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Thursday 18 January, 2007Todays prompt for Poetry Thursday "are you using a line on me?" is predicated on the notion of finding inspiration in one line from another participant’s poem and use that line as a jumping-off place for your own poem.

WORDS

Words, jumbled, ricochetOff the walls of mySkull.Searching to escapeIn iambic pentameter,They rearrange themselves,Testing new meanings.Like orbs, floating, colliding,tumbling, falling.Suspended over me,descending, risinglike bodies in perpetual motion___Images embedded in syntaxUntil they say what I meant__Exactly what I meant.

Thank you bb for coaching this accumulation of words out of my mind with this line "other bodies tumble and fall over us," from your poem "Burning"

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Tuesday, 16th January, 2007

It's a run day but the temp out side this morning is 13°F. or -11°C.So, wimp that I am, I'll use the nordic track this morning. Hey it beats doing nothing.

Yahoo! We got snow yesterday. Not alot but probably 3".You'd 'a thought it was snowing dollar bills, the way everybody was going to the windows and making joy filled comments. Really, when I think about it, snow is winter's salvation. Without snow, winter sucks.

1640: addendum. The snow accumulation had grown to 6-8 inches and was in dire need of shoveling. My driveway is 30ft. square. Instead of nordic tracking, I did nordic shoveling for an hour. I had to forego my shower 'til I got to work. Ate a peanut butter sandwich in the car while driving to the hospital (to work). I had supervision so I thought I'd get out early, but Steve's daughter hit a boulder with her car and demolished it (the car, not the boulder). Maybe we should start driving boulders. lol. She wasn't injured. Steve left to help her. Since he's on call today I picked up his room until he got back.

On the up side it's a bright, sunny, snow covered, frigid day. I did get a few descent photos. At least they look good to me.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

I've got a better idea, Do a Sunday Scribbling first, then go for a run.

Good idea.

Have you got any ideas for a SS topic or prompt.

Meg and Laini will have an idea.I've got an idea that this weeks prompt is their 42nd.

What the heck is an idea anyway?

For me, an idea is a nebulous concept originating in the "mind"; that group of neurons in our grey matter that form a community of committees to bombard us with mental images. When the "light goes on" we say eureka, I have an idea.Good friendsGood healthGood foodGood wineThat's my idea of a good time.

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Zaccharias is a scholarly lion_____
Seeking, peeking behind
The scenes, through the lens
Curious like his namesake, and his
Father before him.
For Zaccharias, information
Is like meat
For other lions.
His mane reflects the
Microscopic images he
Finds and records.
You can not hide
Under the microscope.